7Breaths

“No shortcuts exist to achieving greatness; it just takes strenuous hours of putting in your time to become better at what you do.
http://learn.trizle.com/posts/1040-how-do-you-treat-talent

People work better when they are working to a system. People feel more confident when they are working to a proven system. People need systems
. http://www.gaviningham.com/2008/04/16/the-sales-apprentice-2008-sales-training-tips-from-the-hit-tv-show-part-iv/

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
http://www.robinsharma.com/scripts/ic_blog.php?id=424


Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

- Disraeli
http://www.execupundit.com/2008/04/quote-of-day_13.html

I've posted about logging your time before and I think it's a useful exercise from time to time to see where your time is actually going. Dwayne over at Genuine Curiosity has a nice article with some ideas to help do a time audit - I'd recommend checking it out.

Nice post from David Allen over at the Huffington Post. Great quote "A crisis should be a crisis. Urgent things should be urgent. And they should be exceptional"

Seems to feed in to Covey’s ideas on Quadrant II tasks - Important, Not Urgent - work on these and the Important and Urgent tasks should arise a lot less frequently. Good explanation of it here. So how do you know what to be working on? I like the way Nicholas Bate ( If you've not come across him already I'd advise setting aside a good block of time to read his blog - a real 'thought leader' for me) describes these tasks:

• Important
• Investing
• Interesting

Identify the tasks that fit these criteria and spend more time in Quadrant II working on things that will have the long term payoffs.

Why do you blog - to take part in a conversation or to make money? Seth has some thoughts on the matter.

I get numerous benefits from blogging, but making money is certainly not one of them at the moment. I continue to blog though as I remain passionate about my subject matter. In the end it would not matter if no one read this blog as just by having to write I am crystallising my thoughts and working things out for myself. This is the major payoff for me. The second benefit I've found is the conversations I have had with fellow bloggers - it certainly opens up whole new ideas and perspectives.

Why do you blog? If you don't why not?

Just came across this on YouTube. How I wish more presenters would think about how they use PowerPoint.
Get back to basics and remember you need

• Significance
• Structure
• Simplicity
• Rehearsal

Here are some quotes I've collected on Tumblr from my week of web browsing - just a few things to think about over the weekend. Check out my tumblr site to find the sources of these quotes....


“ Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity - Charles Mingus

“The energy and anxiety that you invest in putting off an activity can consume more energy than is required to perform the activity.” - Jeff Davidson

“ Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results” - Dennis Wholey

“Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.” -
James Ling


“ Consider this: every interruption you take trains other people about how to work with you. If they know they can drop something on you at the last minute, they’ll have no reason to think that’s not the way to work with you next time as well. "

Small Things, Done Consistently, Create Major Impact

“ There is no “set and forget” in self-management

“ On Time Management
It can’t be done. You can manage your choices, though. But then you can’t blame anyone; but you are OK with that aren’t you?

“ On work/life balance
It’s the wrong question: get life balance. It’s the work/life balance question which is the real problem. Did the tinker, tailor, baker or farmer have a work/life balance issue? No. Live a life where is little distinction between work and play. A foolish dream? What’s wrong with one of those?

Signed up for twitter this month. Hearing about it on various blogs and wondering if I could benefit from it. Not sure where it will lead but going to stick with it for April before deciding if I'll continue. I'd love to hear others experiences with using it - what for, benefits for productivity, downsides etc??

I've been using the new Evernote 3 Beta as my capture tool for the last few weeks and must say how impressed I have been with it. The main advantage with it is that I have access to my notes wherever I am because of its ability to synchronise seamlessly between my computer, the web and my windows mobile phone. Now wherever I am I can capture a thought and have access to it no matter what platform I am working on. This is a massive advantage for me over OneNote where most of my notes where stuck on my home machine. There is the ability to tag notes and also to mark notes as to-do items - so I may switch to using it as a next action manager, although I have not at present.

If anyone is interested in trying it the folks at Evernote have given me 10 invites for the Beta Program so drop me a line.

Here are some detailed reviews of Evernote which will give you a much better idea of how it works.